Ald stared at the walls and towers of Felsia as they got reduced to tiny parodies by the distance and the waves of coming and going mist, white funeral veil resting on the river. He tried not to look below, at the hands that seemed to be pushing a tattered rug of water away as they crawled forward.
Hand on the pome of his sword, his attention got entangled on every little movement under the water’s surface. There inhabited horrors about every bough that lazily shifted position, in every fish that dared kiss the surface to catch a dragonfly.
And what if his life were to be upended in a second, in an image rising from the heart of these waters that looked so tranquil and natural? Turbid water or curtains, it didn’t matter, if both were made for hiding the machinery that brought tragedies forth.
He turned eventually, looking at the tensed up soldiers standing around, ready to jump to action as needed. Ald gazed at them as through the pages of an art book, as if every Felsian that still remained around him was unreachable. And in a sense, they were: like the pages of a book about to be returned to the library, they would soon be stashed away from him. That man there, the one closer to him with the tired face, he had people he cared about on land, maybe he even was a caretaker, and Ald would never know.
And yet… Felsian shields. He had to think of them, of the last Felsians he could ever see, as possible sacrifices to save himself. Ald had never been the most important person on any room he had been in. Push them into the waters? Shield his body with theirs? No… that wasn’t him. It was the logical path to take: Unkindness had chosen him to fix this divine negligence or tragedy. He wondered if he was following a vain hope, for Unkindness was a masterwork after all. She wasn’t supposed to be evil, yet carried the same amount of sins as Wildfire. Then again, there was no shortage of Felsians with a penchant for hurting their siblings, despite being as pure as him or Kali.
And Unkindness had him thinking about turning into one of them. He closed his eyes and sat on the deck, a sorry attempt to dispel such thoughts.
“Are you getting dizzy, brother?” asked a female soldier that stood a few steps away from him.
Ald dedicated a pointed stare at her, examining her features. She was young, no older than mid-twenties. Felsians of all ages heard the call to serve the war machine that kept the city of siblings alive, but to see the young ones out here, where there was no chance to run? This was not a seasoned soldier. This could be Kali one day. Gleur could be a good caretaker, sure. Yet, rains or not, if Ald didn’t come back, there was no doubt Kali would be convinced to join the Felsian Army.
“Just disheartened, Sister. I may have business on the other side, but that city over there.” He gestured at the small blur in the misty horizon. “I may have seen in full glory for the last time.”
She sauntered to Ald’s side and gazed in direction to Felsia too. “Should have thought about that before angering Gleur enough to send you on a suicidal mission. What does it take?”
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Ald pondered for a second. He was already ashore, there was no need to hide it anymore.
“Nothing. I am on a mission from Unkindness.”
“Unkindness?” She said, scratching her chin, taking her helmet off as if it were crushing her head. “Hey, Ulgoatmos!” She called for the older of the shipmates, a man in his late forties or early fifties, built like a stick bug: long and thin. He was armed with a single sword, and a buckler hung on his back.
Ulgamos approached them with a step so harmonized with the constant and differential bobbing of the deck that several of his mates through the years permitted themselves a particular little heresy: to say Mother had cheated on Father with a mountain goat to conceive him. “Ulgamos Goatsired” they called him so often and so effusively that he had reclaimed the mocking moniker as his own, and now everyone but the child he had in his youth taken care for and few close friends called him something related to goats, at least in times of joy and relaxation. In times of battle, however, he was Ulgamos to everyone but his closest brothers in arms.
The son of a goat arrived next to them while making no sound. Had Ald not seen him stand form his watching post across the ship to come here, he would have thought the man was a specter, a cursed soul wandering the river.
“What need do you have of me, Nalaq?” he asked in a dry tone, not unhappy nor bothered, but not mirthful, either.
“What is Unkindness?” She asked, tilting her head at Ald, as if to blame him for the question.
“You could have asked him. Unkindness is a mischievous entity that eventually visits those who have faced a Masterwork. When, nobody can say: she takes years to show up sometimes. I saw her only once. She took a crap on my scalp. Suffice to say, I am not fond of the lassie,” he said with a slow rhythm, as if each word deserved its space, as if time was less important than clarity and meaning.
“You are on a mission given to you by a Masterwork?” Nalaq asked, squinting, judging the man that was sitting on the deck.
“Gleur was most likely fine with it, if he isn’t lying. Unkindness is annoying, but more than once I have heard of her acts of mercy. More than a brother or sister can tell the tale because a raven intervened in a moment of dire need.” He shifted his weight from a foot to the other, as if he was privileged when dealing with gravity, as if he could contradict the laws of nature everyone else was subject to. “Nalaq, lassie, cover my post for a moment, will you? I need to have a word or two with our… guest.”
She bowed respectfully, and immediately began her careful slink to the other extreme of the boat.
He sat beside Ald and took out a bitebranch. “Want some?”
Ald shook his head. Ulgamos put the small piece of soft wood in his mouth and started chewing on it. He would never get tired of the strong flavor of bitebranchs.
“You are old enough to know what will happen to you if you are lying.”
“Die alone on the other shore,” Ald answered with a somber tone.
“The other shore? Few who have sinned reach the other shore. Nobody in land knows it: they think the only masterwork under the waters is Baskeut. It’s the one the fishermen meet, as he barely pays any attention to us soldiers. Yet there is also the one we have come to call Wintertoll. If you were to dive in the deepest part of the Worldvein, you would find a myriad of perfect statues of Felsians. All of them sinners, all of them having engendered at least one misshapen. It comes, turns the sinner to stone, and drags it down below, into the murk and mud. If it comes, you better not be lying, lad, because only Unkindness will be able to save you.” He spat out the chewed branch into the river, and put other piece fo it into his mouth. “That said, I think Wintertoll is a girl. It has this stern mother feeling to it, like a bitch correcting the bad behavior of her pups…” He began ranting, and Ald decided to not pay attention to him anymore. He was no sinner. He was no liar. And if Ulgamos wasn’t one either, he would be fine.